WMAQ-TV
WMAQ-TV, virtual channel 5 (UHF digital channel 29), is an NBC owned-and-operated television station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, United States. NBC used to air the Arrow 500 at Charlotte Springs from 1960 to 1963 and 1979 to 1981, because ABC took over in 1964 and again in 1982 until 1983, where it aired on independent television stations until 1986, where it aired on FOX until 2001, because RSN starts its broadcasting. History 1920s WMAQ came to life as WGU on April 13, 1922. The station was formed as a joint venture between The Fair Department Store and the Chicago Daily News, with the station's first transmitter atop the department store. At the time, the station was broadcasting on 833 kilocycles with a transmitter power of about 100 watts. There are questions as to whether anyone actually was able to hear the station's initial half-hour broadcast, as technical problems forced the station to shut down the following day and it remained off the air while a new ordered transmitter was awaited. One of the problems with reception of the station was the interference of other tall buildings in the area and the fact that it had only about 100 watts of power. The City of Chicago also operated its own radio station with similar call letters, WBU; it shared a frequency with Westinghouse's KYW (AM), which began in Chicago the year before.In an attempt to avoid confusion with the city's station, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover inaugurated a new antenna and transmitter of 500 watts and assigned the station the call letters WMAQ. (The station's longtime motto was "We Must Answer Questions," was derived from this call sign.) WMAQ's call letters were first broadcast October 2, 1922 on a clear channel frequency of 750 kc. WMAQ transmitter towers atop La Salle Hotel, where the studios were also located–1925. Early radio had no real rules or regulations; there was no Federal Radio Commission until 1927 (the Federal Communications Commission succeeded it in 1934). Anyone with some technical knowledge and equipment could set up a radio station; early 1923 records show there were 20 radio stations on the air in Chicago alone. While it was then possible for anyone to start a radio station, keeping the station on the air meant that it had to be profitable. Most of these smaller radio stations faded out because of money issues. The Chicago stations that are or had been on the dial for many years had a business or organization behind them which was willing and able to weather the early times when having a radio station did not mean making a profit. WMAQ had the financial backing of the Chicago Daily News, but it also had a very capable general manager, Judith Waller, who was in charge of the station until it was purchased by NBC. At that point Waller became the director of public affairs programming for NBC's central division, holding that title until her retirement in 1957. By early 1923, the Daily News was convinced enough in the power of radio to buy out the Fair Store's 51% interest in the station. The Daily News moved the station and its transmitter to the tallest building in Chicago at the time—the La Salle Hotel on West Washington street in the West Loop. With a new location and new frequency of 670 kilohertz, WMAQ went on the air July 2, 1923. The new frequency however, was not clear channel. WMAQ had to share it with another local station, WQJ, which was jointly owned by the Calumet Baking Powder Company and the Rainbo Gardens Ballroom on North Clark Street. Rainbo was one of the country's top ballrooms and Calumet's broadcasts brought the company much publicity.2425 The Daily News was not able to buy out WQJ until 1927 to make the 670 frequency a clear channel one. Within four weeks after its move, WMAQ obtained the exclusive Chicago rights from American Telephone & Telegraph to broadcast President Warren Harding's address from San Francisco; it also had them for his memorial services on August 10, 1923. At the time, it was AT&T's policy to sell the exclusive broadcasting rights for an event to one radio station per city. Shortly before the special event, AT&T would send wires to all radio stations, informing them of what was to take place; the first radio station to respond to the telegram was then granted the exclusive broadcast rights in their respective city. WMAQ would later broadcast both the 1924 Republican and Democratic conventions by this same arrangement. By 1924, the station took an active interest in broadcasting sporting events, broadcasting the 1924 World Series and convincing William Wrigley to air all Chicago Cubs home games from Wrigley Field in 1925, making the station the first broadcaster of them. Hal Totten who was also a Daily News sportswriter, was WMAQ's first sportscaster. Beginning in the fall of 1925, football games from the University of Chicago were also broadcast. WMAQ was the first to broadcast an intercollegate football game in the United States. Even though the Daily News had formed a partnership with the new National Broadcasting Company in 1926, the following year WMAQ severed its ties with NBC and joined the new Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) as a charter affiliate. It was one of the 16 stations that aired the first CBS network program on September 18, 1927. There was now a need for a new transmitter and a site for it outside of the city, so the station's coverage area could be enlarged. In 1928, the new station transmitter was constructed in Elmhurst. It was also time to move the studios from the La Salle hotel; new studios were constructed at the Daily News Building, which was then at 400 West Madison (today 2 North Riverside Plaza). A new radio show called Amos 'n' Andy also aired for the first time on WMAQ on March 19, 1928. The actors were no strangers to Chicago radio as their program originally aired on WGN as Sam 'n' Henry; their first appearance on Chicago radio is said to have been on WLS in the late 1920s. Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden broke with WGN over syndication rights; General Manager Judith Waller saw the potential of the radio show and granted these rights to the duo as part of their contract. Because WGN owned the rights to the characters of Sam and Henry, Gosden and Correll made some revisions to their act and renamed the characters for their new program Amos and Andy. Since WMAQ was affiliated with CBS at the time, Waller made determined tries to convince the network to make Amos 'n' Andy a network program, but there was no interest. NBC brought the program to its Blue Network in the fall of 1929, paying the duo a record $100,000 for the right to broadcast the program. 1930s By 1930, the Daily News began working with television broadcasting; a published announcement of March 30, 1930 indicated the equipment would be installed and operable within two months. The video signal was to be sent by the shortwave station W9XAP, while the audio would be broadcast on the normal WMAQ radio frequency. WMAQ did not receive an experimental license from the Federal Radio Commission to operate station W9XAP until September 2, 1930. The first broadcast of the station actually occurred shortly before this was granted, on August 27, 1930. Only those with special receivers-primarily radio stores who had received them from the Daily News-could see the video portion of the broadcast. The station distributed 200 receivers in the city and suburbs. Those at the dealerships saw and heard Bill Hay, the announcer for Amos 'n' Andy, present a variety-show broadcast from the Daily News Building. The man behind this and other early Chicago television broadcasts was Ulises Armand Sanabria, who 2 years before used the WCFL Navy Pier transmitter to provide the video and radio station WIBO for the audio portions of the broadcast. Both the technical limitations and economic climate of the times brought an end to the station's broadcasts in August 1933. It was the beginning of WMAQ-TV, which would not re-appear until a World War later.Category:NBC TV Stations Category:Trademarks Category:Television Stations